Photo Finish Spray Lacquer

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

I have personally used Gamvar and find it to be a lovely clear, leveling varnish. One of the caveats of sucessful varnishing is to do it on a dry day. As this was developed in the rather damp northwest I would say this is a very safe varnish to use.

Golden Paints has just released a new archival spray varnish, that I believe can be used on oils. I find Golden's technical support and products excellent. They do a great deal of product research and are generally on the cutting edge. Mike Townsend has been very helpful and knowledgeable. www.goldenpaints.com

Golden's new spray is indeed for paintings as well as pastels. This is a painting varnish spray I would be interested in using when I get back to painting. The folks at Golden have been working on this for a long time, doing great deal of testing and research. Somehow varnishing paintings gives me the hebeejeebies! I once brushed on a retouch varnish on a painting that wasn't quite ready and smeared the whole thing. What a mess!

Sincerely,

[Mike McCarty]

Sharon,

Would you spray this varnish on one of your pastels? This would give me the hebeejeebies!

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

Sharon,

Would you spray this varnish on one of your pastels? This would give me the hebeejeebies!

I would try it on a scrap first, but yes I would probably spray it on my pastels. I do not as yet have a can. I ordered but it has taken a long time to come, so I am going to have to reorder it from another source.

I have been in touch with thier technical department about this spray for years. They have been working really hard on this and are aware of the problems inherent in pastel sprays. The most important aspects of pastel sprays are that they be non-darkening, even misting and rapid drying. I believe that they have tried to adress these problems.

Because I work in such an unusual and outsized format, I have been forced to do as much research on the pastel medium as possible. The technical department at Golden has been enormously helpful, vis-a-vis thier acrylic medium for pastels.

I SPRAY FOLKS! Some pastel sprays do darken and splat, but I find the Rowney Perfix to be about the best I have used so far. Sometimes I am hard put to tell the difference in color after I have sprayed with this product. As a matter of fact, Daniel Greene uses pastel spray to darken his pastels, so his lights sparkle. He discusses this in his book "Pastel", now unfortunately out of print. I grabbed the last copy at the Rhode Island School of Design book store 2-3 years ago and feel like I struck gold. It is worth trying to find a used one on the second-hand market.

Sincerely,